This is an excerpt from the Review of the Nintendo Wii game Mario Party 8 by Vooks

All in all, Hudson’s 8th iteration of the Mario Party series is a solid outing, there’s heaps to do, it’s amazing fun with your mates and it is a great ice breaker for anyone playing. Unfortunately, the game does suffer graphically but it’s nothing you’ve haven’t seen before on Nintendo’s newest system. For fans of the previous games, this may be a bit much of the same to you, but for people who haven’t really touched the franchise since it’s first foray onto the Gamecube (Mario Party 4 or 5), it could be the breathe of fresh air that the series was desperately needing. All in all Hudson have definitely done a good job in making the game fresh enough to utilise the WiiMote controls without making them stale and repetitive.

Mario™ and his pals have plenty to party about: Mario Party® 8 has become the all-time fastest-selling title in Nintendo’s popular Mario Party series. As the first Mario Party game created exclusively for Wii™, this new installment has sold more than 550,000 copies in the United States during the weeks following its May 29 launch.

Enlivening Mario Party’s fun-filled formula with a carnival theme, the latest version of this virtual board game allows players to use the Wii Remote’s unique motion controls while navigating new boards, meeting new characters and going head-to-head in new minigames. Kids and adults can easily pick it up and start playing together.

“The overwhelming response not only reminds us how much fans absolutely love the Mario Party franchise but also proves the unmatched ability of the Wii system to attract new players,” says George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. “Wii users are keeping the Mario Party going strong.”

This is an excerpt from the Review of the Nintendo Wii game Mario Party 8 Multiplayer Mode by Gonintendo

Mario Party was, and still can be a great series for Nintendo. Put some time and effort into the next version. I know you don’t work alone on these projects. It’s time to put your heads together with Hudson and reinvent the series. Give us some truly new games. Take advantage of the Wiimote and Nunchuck. Expand upon the board layouts and ideas. And finally, give us some damn online play! If there were ever a Nintendo title that screams for online play, Mario Party is it. I am not a huge online gamer, but if Mario Party 9 doesn’t have online play, I believe Nintendo has made a huge mistake. The franchise needs and deserves an overhaul. It’s time to breathe new life into a once innovative franchise.

This is an excerpt from the Review of the Nintendo Wii game Mario Party 8 by IGN

Hudson and Nintendo really need to rethink the Mario Party formula, but will they? Not as long as these games keep selling, no. Discerning players will find this latest effort still has its moments, but also that they are fewer and farther between. The game includes a robust list of minis, boards and modes and yet you’ll quickly discover that little else has been changed. All of our complaints about previous games – the slow pace, the lackluster single-player affair, the loose attention to detail – all remain and with Mario Party 8 we can add another criticism: ignorance of the Wii remote. True, there are a dozen or more minis that do utilize Nintendo’s new controller in a unique and enjoyable way, but there are dozens more that don’t – that, in fact, were obviously born on GameCube and later ported to Wii with last-minute new motion systems added in. This lackadaisical approach to the franchise sequel bleeds over into the presentation, which doesn’t impress as a GCN effort, let alone a Wii one.

In spite of our issues with the game, people who loved Mario Party 7 will probably enjoy Mario Party 8, too, but we’ve chosen not to reward Nintendo with an undeserved high score for a copy/paste sequel.

KEY INFORMATION
The world’s enormously popular party video game is getting a lot crazier in Mario Party 8. Whether you’re shaking up cola cans or lassoing barrels, you and your friends will be drawn into the action like never before using the Wii Remote™.

* Play with motion control: Players row their way through a river race, punch a statue to pieces, steer race cars, mopeds and go-karts and handle a balancing pole while walking a tightrope.

* Play using the Wii Remote as a Pointer: Shoot at Boos in a haunted house, drag and drop toppings in a cake-decorating competition, select the correct answers in game show challenges.

* Play using the Wii Remote’s buttons: Players jump and pummel their way through a football brawl, and hop and run across a field of spinning platforms

* Mario Party 8 also includes dozens of new minigames, six new party boards and many new game modes. In a series first, players can transform their characters into many forms, such as player-smashing boulders and coin-sucking vampires.

* Mario Party 8 also includes “extra-large” minigames like Star Carnival Bowling and Table Menace. One to four players can play Mario Party 8, each with a Wii Remote.

Game storyline: In Mario Party 8, a hyperactive emcee has invited Mario™, Peach and the rest of the crew to his carnival, a perfect setting for the dynamic spectacle of the Wii game play. Mario Party 8 keeps the surprises coming with minigames that draw upon the Wii Remote’s motion, pointing and button control in a variety of ways. Players always know how to jump into the action by watching an animated tutorial that shows how to use the Wii Remote.

How to progress through the game: Following tradition, Mario Party 8 takes the social, strategic game play of board games and adds breaks for quick, action-oriented minigames. In the main mode, players travel across six boards in search of Stars, landing on spaces that are helpful (example: giving coins) or a hindrance (example: sending Bowser in to mess with the player). Several variations for these boards tweak the main goals to enhance game play for solo sessions, two-player games and three- to four-player games.

In addition, Mario Party 8 includes four more minigame-infused kinds of special games, such as Tic-Tac Drop, where players earn the right to put the next mark on the board by winning a minigame.

Characters: Mario Party games are a celebration of all things Mario, so you can play as 14 classic characters, the widest selection yet for the series, including newcomers Hammer Bro and Blooper. You’ll also bump into many old friends and foes that span 20+ years of Mario games.

Special powers/weapons/moves/features: Beyond using the Wii Remote’s motion and pointer control, this eighth game in the Mario Party series goes its own way with two changes:

* Players can transform their character using candy power-ups. Examples: When Peach eats Bowlo Candy, she’ll turn into a Peach-faced ball and bowl over characters to get their coins. When Wario™ eats Vampire Candy, he’ll sprout wings and fly off to suck the coins from all other players.

* A more engaging view of the action puts the player “on the board” with his traveling character, no longer far above the whole board looking down.

This is an excerpt from the Hands-On Article of the Nintendo Wii game Mario Party 8 by AMN

In our playtime, as said above, we’ve been mostly playing multiplayer. While Mario Party single-player might be adequate, it’s obvious the real fun to be had in any version lies in multiplayer. There are several modes here and fans will already be familiar with many of them. There is Party Tent, Star Battle Arena, Mini-Game Tent and Extra Tent.

Party Tent, if you will, is the “main” multiplayer mode. The mode lets you embark on an experience similar to what can be found in the single-player mode. Up to four can play – with CPUs filling in if you need them – with the goal being to traverse a game board of surprises and challenges, collecting coins and stars. At the end of the game, the player with the most stars and coins wins. Sure, it’s Mario Party on Wii, but you’ll feel right at home. Gamers take turns moving around the game board, rolling a die to see how many spaces they can move. At the beginning of each turn, you flick the Wii-mote to stop a spinning die floating above your character’s body. Whatever number it stops on represents how many spaces your character will automatically move.